Duck Sauce: 1600lb, 300 whp, N/A Honda Civic

Nothing is more impressive than a mod list ten pages long. Just kidding, a lot of things are more impressive than a mod list ten pages long, things like achievements and being able to relish in the fact that “less is more” is a winning formula for Minh Genie and his 1995 Honda Civic AKA The Duck.

“It’s stock” is the phrase often used by Minh when describing The Duck. What he means to say is that it’s a stock K24 engine and transmission in a completely gutted and Swiss cheesed shell of a 1995 Honda Civic. Of course we can see the obvious modifications in the fuel, intake, and exhaust departments but the point is that the engine in itself is stock.

The Duck is now making over 300 whp… “that’s the fuckin’ way she goes”

Weighing in at only 1600 pounds, it doesn’t take much power to get this car down the strip however, through the expertise of Johnny at Adam’s Automotive in Crestview, FL this engine was able to produce 270 whp. Certainly enough to get The Duck down the quarter mile in 10.92 seconds. With a 75 shot of nitrous, Minh has hurled this tin can down the strip in 10.6 seconds. A stock engine and transmission K24 powered Honda Civic in the 10s. Impressive.

There are plenty of cars that could out run The Duck but typically there is a key difference between those cars and The Duck; the difference is money spent. The parts that are in The Duck are either free or dirt cheap OEM Honda parts that Minh has salvaged from other cars or they’re second hand parts had from other projects. The budget was nill and the goal was simple: Send the car down the track.

Even if you beat him, you can’t beat him.

If it goes fast, great! If not, nothing was lost. Think about it this way, if Minh wins a race in The Duck then he beat someone with a junkyard Honda Civic (seriously, junk yard parts). If he loses then the victor get’s to gloat to all their friends that they beat… a… Honda Civic… Even if you beat him, you can’t beat him.

Now sure, there are some obvious modifications made to this Civic that help it make the horsepower it makes. One glaring and very special piece is this 850Fabrication LLC 4-1 header which was designed to allow Minh to grow into upgraded camshafts. More on that later. I contacted Blake Barr of 850Fabrication LLC to get some insight in the reasoning behind the design of this header. Here is what he had to say:

I built the header for him to grow into (upgraded) camshafts, it just happened to work really well on stock cams as well. It’s a 3 step header. At each step, there is a negative pressure wave that makes its way back to the exhaust valve. When timed correctly, that negative pressure wave can hit the back of the exhaust valve at the time it starts opening and while the intake valve is still open. This creates a supercharging effect using the negative pressure wave to pull the intake charge in and help clear the exhaust more efficiently, yield a greater VE and a cleaner volume of air to combust.

So about those upgraded camshafts. Well, things are a bit different now in how much power The Duck is making compared to it’s stock setup. Now sporting Prayoonto Racing Stage 3 camshafts, and TDC Performance 1600 cc injectors, The Duck is now making over 300 whp. Needless to say the stock transmission isn’t happy about being the conduit between that engine and those Mickey Thompsons. He’s currently on transmission number three but “that’s the fuckin’ way she goes” (Ray, Trailer Park Boys, 2005).

CAM2 oil, nothing but the best, and by best I mean cheapest. In fact it’s the cheapest oil Minh could get his hands on. The oil change intervals are extremely frequent since a large volume of methanol is being pumped into this engine at full chat.

So what then is the point of all this if Minh isn’t going to be phased by winning or losing. Well The Duck is a cheaper alternative to racing than The Hulk. “The Hulk?” Yes, The Hulk. Perhaps soon we’ll see an article on that no holds barred monster. Until then, enjoy more of The Duck.

I believe he said he had a friend paint it. Just a little something to give the shell he bought a bit of pop. He says it has it’s flaws but of course the initial impression is “wow”. Other than the paint and the header, he built this car in his back yard. Hell, even the engine was put together under a tree at night, then his phone died and he lost his light source but still got it done.

I was at an scca spec autocross session recently and I watched this da9 b18a integra tear the track up and I got a chance to check the owners car after the races because I was so impressed at at how this car was just ripping through corners. As I was looking at his car I was most impressed by the engine as well as the engine setup so those were the aspects of the car I most impressed by given the fact it was a matching numbers b18a1 however; I was looking at his suspension and other than coilovers it was a mostly stock setup with the exception of energy suspension bushing kit. My main question is how safe is it to run stock upper and lower control arms with a mild n/a or small turbo setup? 180-250hp range. Thanks, love your videos , keep up the good work!

Awesome build! I’m doing something similar right now so this really hits home for me and I LOVE it. I have a 93 Si that used to be the host of my built NA B20V, which turned into my 3076R boosted B20V and eventually my broken ring land B20V. Now it’s Under the knife for a K24 block/K20 head setup. Like Duck Sauce the plan is to go as fast as I can on minimal budget, so thus far it’s just on the cheapest of parts. Goal is 260+whp on stock cams and internals tuned on Kpro. After I beat on it in that trim for a little while I plan to toss my ID1000s on, get a better header and retune on E85, then down the road it will get a head package with cams. Goal is just to have fun on the cheap though, so the Duck Sauce build is a great motivation! Also I’m not opposed to using budget oil stocks either; I change the oil in my Integra and the Civic very often, so using an OEM filter and Mobil1 every time isn’t economical. I typically run Super S Multi Flo synthetic from Smittys for $3.12 a quart and a $5 Bosch filter. (Uses the excellent Filtech media) This budget combo has Worked wonders over the years and with change intervals under 2500 miles I’ve never seen any issues with break down or poor lubriciation. Rock on!

The Ks are taking over. You can make so much power with these engines and they’re readily available from many a junked Honda. It’s amazing to see people making north of 260 whp with these engines. Doing that on a B series would require extensive modification and astronomical compression ratios. Good luck with your build. I have no doubt that you’ll smash through your goals with a K24/K20 combo.